


Wreckage and Rust

by romanticalgirl



Category: Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-08
Updated: 2013-04-08
Packaged: 2017-12-07 20:57:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/753003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The past isn't letting you go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wreckage and Rust

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song [Jubilee](http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/carpenter-mary-chapin/jubilee-5243.html) by Mary Chapin Carpenter. Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/)**inlovewithnight** , it's Horatio's song and so Maria as well.
> 
> Originally posted 7-19-10

Hornblower looks out the window of his carriage and then around at Brown. The streets are lined with people, all swarming along the road like insects, their voices buzzing through the air. Barbara sits beside him, lost in thoughts she seems disinclined to share with him. The air is hot and heavy, August burying the country in something oppressive as it tries to slip off the lingering shackles of war. Men are unemployed, lingering in corners and alleys begging for pennies to get them back on their feet. Others still are seeking changes in the ways of the world, fighting for a different kind of freedom.

Today though they all seemed joined in one mission, clogging the rutted roads with smells and laughter, the scent of food and the water coming in on the air as they all draw closer to their final destination. It is Midsummer and there is the distant sound of music, clamoring loudly to his ears. He frowns and clears his throat, turning his attention to the majestic ships as the carriage rounds the bend and they rise from the water. An ache rises up and he does his best to tamp it down, closing his eyes to listen to the past and the sound of men moving over the boards, the wooden thump an echo he cannot shake.

Finally the crowd thins as Brown steers the carriage to an offshoot road that leads to the assemblage of higher class patrons, all gathering and nodding to one another as they slip toward the tents and chairs held exclusively for them to keep them from the blinding sun and the crowded scene nearby. He hands Barbara off to her friends and acquaintances, gladly escaping the political talk with a bow and walking toward the barrier that divides the classes and their separate celebrations. He has never been comfortable in either world – too careful for the lower classes and too ill at ease for the upper, but like this he can bridge the distance between the two.

He knows he has duties. He is to be husband and hero for their friends and constituents and hangers-on, a name that others can say as introduction as if some proof of their own worth. He tries to not tire of it, to not think of all the dead he stands on to achieve this lofty place. He watches the faces of the celebrating masses, dancing and eating and laughing and playing games of chance and skill. They are not familiar, though they easily could be men that served under him or their wives, perhaps even their children. He feels each and every year he wears, and other still that he sometimes thinks are the ones cut short from those who died under his command.

Something uncertain catches his attention, and he focuses on a small crowd of revelry seekers, men and women both clapping in time to a wild dance in their small circle. Further off there is the sound of canon fire, charges plunging into the peaceful sea. He can taste gunpowder and sweat in his memory, but it is not that that plagues him as he draws closer.

There. A voice. A glance.

 _Maria_.

He is used to seeing ghosts, has grown accustomed to them crowding his vision when he least expects it. Some flare like fires and others steam comfort like tea – Sawyer and Archie and Bush and Wellard, his children and her. She of all of them has haunted him most painfully, a ghost of his own making. Or so he always assumed, so he was given to believe.

“Maria.”

He expects that, when he says her name, there will be nothing. She will not respond, for clearly he is mistaken and it is not her. There is no way that it can be his wife, long buried and to all but him, forgotten. Except that she looks up at the sound and stops, silent and frightened before turning quickly and hurrying out of the group, losing herself in the crowd. He is frozen for a moment, too shocked at her acknowledgement to move, but then he pushes past the barricade and the revelers, pursuing her through the twists and turns of the crowd.

“Maria.” He is not used to such activity, rushed and panicked and pell-mell. Still, with the sound of cannons in the background, he can easily imagine the roll of waves beneath his feet and the rage of war all around him. Sound and music and light and time blend together to become something else instead and he focuses on strategy and maneuvers rather than the blind chase. She runs like a frightened rabbit, no heed to where she is going, buffeted along by the people around her as they shout rude obscenities at her fleeing back. It is easy to find the path of least resistance from his taller height, easier still to best her with a longer stride as she is hampered by full skirts. He catches her arm and pulls her to a stop amidst a group of women knitting amidst the chaos, surprised at their presence. “Maria.”

“I…” She is breathless from her flight, straining against his grip. “I do not know who you speak of.”

He moves in closer, his voice low. “Do you think I do not know my own wife?”

It is strange, the smile that changes her features, so unlike any expression he has ever seen on her face. It is a smile of knowing, a smile sharp and cutting. He knows without another word that though she may be Maria, she is not _his_ Maria.

“Please.” The word seems foreign on his tongue, as strangled as if he were attempting another language. She seems startled by it, the mask of distance falling from her face and, for a moment, he can see the woman he rarely allows himself to remember. He can see the earnest, hopeful face that he had watched get lost behind disillusionment. “Please, Maria.”

She flushes and dips her head in the barest hint of a nod. Something tightens in his chest and he nods as well, shifting his grip so that it cups her elbow instead of confines her movement. They walk side by side, away from the crowds. It takes some time until they have a measure of privacy, the mass of people thinning as they move away from the food and celebration. He can still hear the music, flat and metallic to his ears, but it almost seems a different world when he guides her behind a row of rough-hewn buildings smelling strongly of the sea.

She leans against the wall, her hands folded together in front of her and he takes the moment to observe her, to _see_ her. She has aged surprisingly well. Her hair is still dark, though there are threads of grey that catch and glint in the sunlight. Poverty and hard living show in her face and hands in wrinkles and red splotches. Her fingertips are pricked with small dots of darkness amongst calluses and broken skin, memories of years of sewing and housecleaning.

“Maria, I…” He stops, clearing his throat. It’s impossible to look away from her, to see anything else around them. It is as though he is in their small home again, surrounded by varying degrees of death and despair. Years seem to fall away and he sees her as she was then, trying and failing to fit, to be the wife he wanted and needed. “I…you are _dead_.”

“Yes,” she agrees, her voice soft but unmistakably hers. “I am. I am a fiction now, a past to twist and bend to the whims of the present. A ghost.” She takes a step back, further away from him. “One you should lay to rest.”

“You are clearly _not_ dead.” His voice is low, angry and he closes the gap between them, grabbing her arm once again. “What is this, Maria?”

“You were dead.” She laughs, the sound too high-pitched. “You were dead and I was alone and with child. What would you have had me do?”

“What did you do?”

“Your-” She stops and swallows hard and he can see the mettle that straightens her spine as she lifts her head and looks him in the eye. “Your wife came to me with a proposition.”

“My…” It takes him a moment to understand, even longer to react, and when he does his voice wavers between incredulity and anger. “Lady Barbara?”

“She came to me and told me that your child should have a proper education. Be a man like his father. She told me that it was clear that I could not provide that for him, so she offered to take him. Raise him. Educate him.”

“Yes, she told me all of this.”

“Did she?” Maria nods and draws in a sharp breath, letting it go slowly. “Yes. I imagine she did. But you were dead, and she could not simply take a son from his mother. To have me lose a husband and then deprive me of a child seemed far to cruel even for her.”

“She is not a cruel woman, Maria.”

“No. She is not. She is a practical one, which suits you far better than any romantic notions of love I may have had.” She is harder, this Maria, and it comes through in her words. A bargain was struck, that much is clear, and the glimmer of it flashes at him. “Better to give you a legacy. A child that could be raised with your name and the power of the Wellesley family. What better way to honor your memory?”

“She proposed you give her the child?”

“That could not be done. For the wife of a war hero to give up his child, regardless of any motivating factor, would be akin to treason.” She turns her face away, looking past him to something he fears he cannot see, did not see when it was directly in front of him. “My duty, I was informed…my…my duty…” She shakes her head and takes a deep, steadying breath, though he can hear the thickness in it, the hint of tears. “I learned that from you, you realize. Duty. Duty above all else. Duty to God and King and country. Duty to the ties we’ve bound ourselves to and wish we could slip. I was your duty, was I not, Horatio?”

His name falls from her lips like an invective and he blanches, wondering how these same lips could have whispered his hated nickname as an endearment. “You were my wife. Are…were.”

“Maria Mason is dead. Maria Hornblower is dead. Your wife is dead. My duty was to lay down my life for your son. Would I not give anything for our children? Would I not give anything for you? Did I not owe it to you to grant him the future you had paid for in blood?” She swallows again and faces him, and for a moment, he does not recognize her. She is the stranger she purports to be. “He could not be given. He had to be orphaned and championed. She would rally to his cause and raise up the son of the vaunted Horatio Hornblower.”

“So you…”

“I died. I followed my husband to the grave, and how fitting that neither of us managed to stay there. But you needn’t worry. Lady Barbara paid well for the privilege of being mother as well as wife. I was given a tidy stipend to disappear and a sharp warning to stay in my grave when you were found to be alive.”

“He was your son.”

“No, Horatio. He was always yours. I was not the mother you wanted for any of your children, and as always, you were granted what you most wished for, however painful the granting. You have the wife and family you want. You have your name, so much more celebrated now with her behind you, beside you. He is, I’m sure, afforded every opportunity, and we all know quite well that he would have nothing were he with me. We are all better off.”

“What…what do you do? Where do you live?”

“I live elsewhere. Away. Somewhere I should be rather than here.” She nods to him and moves past, heading back toward the gathered crowd and another life. He has questions he knows she will not answer – if she is married again, if she has a family, if she thinks of him at all, if she will ever forgive him – and he realizes in the end it does not matter. As she says, they are all better off.

“Wait. Please.”

She turns, sun highlighting her hair and throwing her in shadow, so that he can see the woman she was. “What is your name?”

She laughs, and the sound catches the wind and flies back on wings toward the festival. “Lydia. My name is Lydia.”  



End file.
